I Am Second is a video testimony site with the goal of inspiring people to live for God and others. It currently features a host of videos from athletes, actors, and business persons. Some of them may have material not suitable for children (i.e. discussions of actions in the “old life”) but others would be very applicable (Colt McCoy and Joe Gibbs). You can only download a few from the I Am Second site, but you can download many others on Vimeo.

If you like one you can’t download, many church presentation programs allow you to display websites within the presentation. You could probably configure a work around that way. I have planned for adults to come into children’s worship to give their testimonies this summer. If I have a gap because someone didn’t show up or sign up for that day, I can always use one of these.

Would you like to be able to access your church computer from home? If so, you need to check out Ultra VNC. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. Read more about it here. It has to be installed on both the computer you are on and the one you are accessing remotely.

I had previously posted on a product called Log Me In. I use this frequently to access the computer in my children’s worship room to make “saturday night” adjustments, and have never had a problem with it. It is very user friendly, however, you can not do file transfers with it. With a true VNC, you can usually transfer files.

Other VNC’s include:

RealVNC

VNC Free

If you are looking for some good ideas and motivational reading, go check out Children’s Church Ministry. Content on the site occasionally leads you to a product you can purchase, but it’s not an overwhelming sales pitch.

What do you do when you have families splitting up in the church? We pray, we offer encouragement, we hang out a little extra with the kids. In order to minister to hurting families, we have to garner as many resources as possible. If you check out the Divorce Care for Kids Parent Zone website, you can find a great deal of articles about how to handle various situations in a divorced family.

You may not have DC4K in your church, but you can still download the Parent Pages handout that goes along with the various segments of DC4K in addition to the helpful articles. These are helpful resources at your disposal that keep you from having to write your own, therefore spending more time ministering to families!

Check out Family Time Training to get a few free family activities to spread around your ministry. Use them as a follow up to a special event or insert them in newsletters.

If you have a children’s worship room with dual screen computer capabilities, you really need to check this out. I have to be honest I haven’t quite gotten around to trying it, but I will in the coming week!

Basically, you download this program and you can “puppet” L.T., a redneck spokesman to say whatever you want and move however you’d like him to move. It would be a great way to discuss announcements with kids or to introduce a Bible story in a creative way. Check out the other things that Crowd Control Games has for sale. It looks like quality stuff.

Christian Video Magazine is a free online magazine geared toward providing Christian viewpoints on the use of video and media in ministry settings. Here’s a quote from their site on what they do:

The purpose of Christian Video Magazine is simple. We want to provide our readers with articles that cover everything about using videos in the church, on their websites, and for ministry. How do you use them? How do you stream them? How do you create them? How do you project them? Where can you find them? Who is creating them? How will they impact mobile computing? What about background loops? And how can we make the best use of all of the fantastic Christian music videos?

You can either receive their magazine in a truncated email format or look at all of their articles in PDF or HTML format online. If you utilize videos in your ministry or want to keep up with relevant topics in the media industry, this is a good resource to check out.

This month’s Leadership Nugget is a handy worksheet I use every single week to help me design children’s sermons. I fully believe that verse by verse exposition of God’s Word is the best way to proclaim God’s Word to kids. What I don’t mean is that I bore kids with a 35 minute exegetical message using a lot of Hebrew and Greek words. What I do mean is that I teach them the Word in an organized way that is seasoned with interactive and cutting edge methods. The worksheet below is the blueprint that gets me to a final product. I hope it’s helpful for you!

Preparing a Lesson for Kids

Also, be sure to get your name in the hat for the 2 Brent Weber DVD’s. I’ll draw names on Wednesday.

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a great new site called Effective Children’s Ministry. They are really starting to get some great content. Keep it up Catherine and Lin!

Also, I’ve extended the Brent Weber DVD contest for another week. Be sure to get your name in the hat soon!

I’ve come across this really awesome band for kids called The Lads. They are from New Zealand and have a great sound. There is a movement in Children’s and Family music to make music more culturally relevant and this is a great thing! On their site, you can download several of their songs. Just look for the brown box with the orange arrow at the top of their site. I can’t link you straight to them because the site is flash based.